Death in Bloodhound Red by Virginia Lanier

Finished on 7/26.

I read this - and the next three of these several years ago. Great stories. This one turned up the other day, and I decided they were worth rereading. Since the paperback is thick and the paper is yellowing, I went looking for kindle versions. The fifth in the series is reasonably priced in kindle format, but none of the others are. So, I read it on paper - which slows me down significantly. There are only six books in the series; the first was published in 1995 - Lanier was 65. She decided to write a novel herself after following Dorothy Parker's advice about a book she was reading: "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force." She figured she could do better - and she did. Unfortunately, she died in 2003, giving Jo Beth Sidden a short run in the annals of detective fiction. On the other hand, maybe there is yet hope for me.

Like Goldy Schultz in Diane Mott Davidson's series, Jo Beth got away from an abusive husband alive and is trying to make a life and protect herself at the same time. Unlike Goldy, she is breeding and training bloodhounds for search and rescue, drugs, arson investigations, and anything else that they are used for. The thought of twenty or thirty bloodhounds in one place is somewhat overwhelming - a smallish bloodhound would outweigh my 85- pound shepherd. That is a lot of dog chow - and end product ---

There are a lot of searches in the story, but the primary thread is Jo Beth herself. Her own background is a mystery which takes a lot of solving.

Exodus (KJV)

Finished on 7/24.

No much to say - except that I thought that this book was mostly story, but there are an awful lot of repetitive "thou shalt's" and "thou shalt not's."

This is producing some reluctance to begin Leviticus - which I know is primarily law.

Worth Dying For by Lee Childs

Finished on 7/24.

Cleverer readers than I probably figure out the mysterious cargo earlier in the story. I was down to the last quarter before the light dawned. In my own defense, Childs is very cagy about the whole thing. It resembles somewhat the device that Reichs used in 2006 Bones, italicized passages at the beginning of each chapter describing Tempe's experiences and thought processes after being buried alive - somewhere toward the end of the story. Here the narrative of the movement of the cargo is in the same relative time as the action taking place in nowhere, Nebraska. I would like to see the book in actual print - typically there are many cues in the print - type face, spacing, pagination - that help with interpretation. Leading text was bolded in places, but the translation to kindle format drops most spacing cues. I wonder if writers/publishers will start using actual printed cues - lines of dashes or asterisks or something - to replace spacing cues as more and more material is being directed to electronic media.

I have read a number of books in this series, but not faithfully or consistently. I like the character, Jack Reacher, very much (Tom Cruise?? Isn't he about seven inches too short? I have trouble with the idea of a short Jack Reacher.) The series device of making Reacher portable dodges the issue of back story and consistency with continuing characters almost completely. Marion Bradley simply ignored consistency in her Darkover books. She is reported to have said that it was her universe, and she would do what she wanted there - or words to that general effect. Still most series writers do depend on that frame of character and setting - Kinsey Milhone and fake Santa Barbara, Sharon McCone and San Francisco, V. I. Warshawsky and Chicago, Harry Dresden and a very different Chicago, Dave Robichaux and New Orleans, Jim Chee and the res, and on and on. The setting can be limiting, I suppose, like a sit-com which has exhausted the potential of the situation, but it makes it very easy for the reader to slip into another story because we already (usually) are familiar with the general set- up.

In this story there were allusions to the previous story - probably to hook readers like me into purchasing that book to find out ... . And is the mysterious Susan in Virginia recent or ancient history - or nonexistent?

This one seemed vaguely reminescent of another Reacher book that I read years ago. I seem to recall that he walked into a small isolated community somewhere in the desert southwest and walked away leaving it in flames behind him, but that is only a very vague memory.

Based on very little evidence, it seems to me that the Reacher stories are either "mission" stories or "coin-toss" stories, as in "left or right at the crossroads" - toss a coin and thereby hangs the tale. And this one appears to be a coin-toss, but the end casts some doubt on that.

Children of the Atom by Wilmar H. Shiras

Finished on 7/22.

My sister and I were talking books the other day and remembered this one. I found it on Amazon and ordered it. Now she can borrow it when she comes back here to pick up her car from the shop (a long story which doesn't really impact this at all).

I first read this book in the late fifties or early sixties. I suspect that it was in my father's library. It is still a good read. The improbability of the premise really doesn't seem to matter - or at least it doesn't matter to me. We'll see what my sister says.

Of strictly tangential interest, I had always incorrectly assumed that Wilmar Shiras was male - probably more because in that period far more science fiction writers were. I wonder if there are others who disguised their female identities with carefully chosen pen names. I still run into people of my generation who will argue with me over the fact that Andre Norton was a woman.

Also, I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that this book was actually published as three novellas in Astounding - in the forties. They were expanded and published as a book in 1953. I think my sister knew that - I guess I don't pay a lot of attention to that sort of detail - fortunately, Google fills in the blanks for me.

"F" is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton

Finished on 7/21.

Eighteen years ago Bailey Fowler walked away from a prison work detail and never resurfaced. He was picked up by a fluke of mistaken identity and has been returned to Santa Teresa.

Kinsey's job is to find the person who actually committed the murder for which he went to prison in the first place.

Crunch Time by Diane Mott Davidson

Finished on 7/20.

This centers around the complicated life of Goldy's friend and fellow chef, Yolanda, who has appeared in several earlier books. Yolanda's ex-boyfriend is harrassing her, and she and her wheelchair-bound aunt Ferdinandina end up moving in to the Schultz home. One of the results is that Officer Boyd, who is frequently assigned to guard (and assist Goldy) and Yolanda fall for each other.

It is replete, as always, with near-misses and near-disasters of all sorts - including culinary.

"E" is for Evidence by Sue Grafton

Finished on 7/18.

Kinsey herself is framed in this one with carefully planted misleading evidence and missing evidence which all points to her - title hereby justified. She doesn't kill anyone either - so the allegation that Grafton always ends these with Kinsey blowing away the bad is beginning to look like a misrepresentation. Still, there are twenty-one more books in the series, some not even written.

She has done a good job of showing the frustration of fighting against a program of lies and innuendo.